


Meet Yourself

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: Tumblr prompt fics [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Asexual Character, Asexual Leon, Asexual Leon (Merlin), Gen, Short One Shot, giving yourself advice, meeting your older self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table meet their older selves. Based on a tumblr prompt.
Series: Tumblr prompt fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922554
Comments: 2
Kudos: 95





	Meet Yourself

“Merlin, who are these guys?” Arthur asked. “I mean, I recognize Dragoon, but who are the rest of them?”

“I think they’re us,” the warlock replied. The gray-haired Elyan waved.

“What?” Leon asked. “Where’s you then?”

“And why is Dragoon here?” Arthur continued. They all knew his hatred for the old sorcerer who had killed his father.

“Um…” Merlin stalled. Lancelot, the occasionally horrible best friend that he was, interupted before he could lie.

“Dragoon isn’t actually a real person he’s just Merlin with an aging spell that he used as a disguise before magic was legalized,” he said quickly before the warlock could slap him with a a gagging spell. He’d done it before and would do it again. The Lancelot with grey hair and wrinkles that stood beside the older Merlin/Dragoon gave him a thumbs up and a nod. 

Arthur opened his mouth, paused for a second, and then closed it with a shake of his head. “We’ll unpack all of that later. What are our older selves doing here?”

“Merlin figured out timetravel, so we decided to come say hello,” older Gwaine said.

“Also I’ve got a bit of a prophesy to deliver,” Not-Dragoon replied. “We should have just a minute or so until the spell wears off and we get catapulted back home. You can talk; just don’t touch your younger or older self.”

Instantly, Leon beckoned his younger self over to the side. He’d lost his long hair as he aged, and now wore a hat over his bald head.

“I’ve had a long time to think about what I would tell myself if I could talk to him,” he said. “There’s not much I regret about my life, except that I spent too long trying to conform to what people expected of me. I never wanted to get married, nor have children, but I did so because it was expected of me. If you choose not to do so, you will still be respected as the First Knight by Arthur and the others.”

The younger Leon looked surprised. He’d never told anyone that he wasn’t interested in romance, even when Gwaine had admitted to him that he liked men. His older self must’ve known that he himself was the only person who would reassure him that what he felt, or rather, didn’t feel, was okay.

Not far from them, Percival stood with Percival. They weren’t the same height. The tall man had shrunk a few inches, and finally put sleeves on, but he was clearly still a strong man. “Spend time with your children when they’re little. Arthur doesn’t need you every minute; he has other knights. They only have one father.”

“I have children?” the younger man asked. Both of them smiled.

“Yes. And the loveliest wife in the world.”

Elyan and his older self were also taking about children, or one child in particular. “Listen,” the older man said. “Your nephew is going to grow up to be a spoiled little princeling if you don’t keep him on the right track. Gwen will fight you on it and say he deserves everything she gives him, and she’s right, but nobody needs that much affection. She’s also going to smother him with love whenever he’s in the castle, and Arthur is surprisingly overprotective as well, so you and Gwaine are going to have to teach him how to fight and ride. Just watch out when you come across a log going over a river; it’s rotten and it will break.” The younger Elyan nodded, dutifully committing these warnings to memory.

Gwaine and Lancelot have switched selves. Gwaine, his long hair gone silver and an old scar slashed across his nose, is talking to a younger Lancelot.

“Please,” he said. “Please immediately pull every single prank that comes into your head. You do nothing nowadays except complain about the pranks you never pulled when you were younger and try to convince Galahad to use them on his friends. Your son is actually as responsible as you pretended to be though, so he never uses them, and so all you do is talk, you crazy old man.” Young Lancelot smiles, looking very satisfied as he chooses in that instant to fully embrace his inner chaotic bastard.

Old Lancelot and young Gwaine are having the opposite conversation. “Gwaine, for your health, you have to settle down at some point. Just find a person, any person, to stay with for more than two nights. Any person except Elaine,” he clarified. “Don’t mess with Elaine. I know flirting is your first instinct, but just don’t with her. She will not appreciate it, and will kick your ass and then will kick my ass for good measure. You won’t get her anyway.”

“I didn’t get her in your timeline, that doesn’t mean I won’t get her in this one,” he counters, despite the fact that he does not, in fact, even know who Elaine is yet. Lancelot just sighs.

Merlin leaves Arthur to deliver the prophesy so he can have a chance to knock some sense into his younger self. Literally. The Dragoon-look-alike whacked him with his staff like he used to do with Arthur and the knights. Evidently, his warning about touching your younger self did not apply to staffs.

“Stop thinking about prophesies,” he ordered in his old man voice. “I know I came back here allegedly to tell you about one, but that’s a lie, because you just need to stop wondering about what fate has in mind for you and just live your damn life. I’ll know if you don’t, and I’ll be back.” With that final warning, he and all the other old versions of the knights poofed out of existence.

“The older me didn’t get to finish the prophesy!” Arthur said, sounding nervous. He was probably worried that there was important information he had missed.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Merlin reassured him. Looking over the knights, he added, “I think we learned everything we needed to know.”


End file.
